Chapter 2173 Wolf Pack Tactic
“Miss Parul, you’ve seemed a bit down these past few days. Are you worried about the upcoming ship interception?” As I was lost in thought, someone spoke around me. I opened my eyes and saw Mr. Zhang.
We were currently sitting in the captain’s cabin of the Blood Hawk, or perhaps it should be called the tactics room now. In the center of the room, a magically created sea map displayed the surrounding sea area, with a miniature model of the Blood Hawk bobbing with the waves.
This sea map was created byAniya using Druidic magic. It was originally placed in the captain’s cabin and could monitor the surrounding sea conditions in real-time, even reproducing wind and waves on the simulated sea map.
Since it was too cold outside, the non-undead crew members usually rested in the cabins. After I modernized the ship, the cabins were heated, so the crew wouldn’t freeze if they stayed inside.
As for the Undead Sailors, they also didn’t like going out on deck in the freezing north wind. Although they could no longer feel the cold, they preferred to stay in the cabins, drinking and playing cards with the living crew members. Anyway, the Blood Hawk could sail on its own as a Ghost Ship, as long as it was given a direction.
The steam heating made the entire tactics command room warm, making me feel a bit drowsy as I leaned back on the lounge chair. Coupled with the lullaby of the Music Box heard by my main body on the other side, I had actually fallen asleep just now.
It was Mr. Zhang who woke me. Since only the two of us were in the tactics room with no other outsiders, he directly called me by my name.
“I have some personal troubles, but they are unrelated to this matter. Besides, the ship interception just needs to proceed according to plan. My command isn’t important, is it?” I said, sitting up.
“Although that is what you say, this is the Blood Hawk’s first solo interception. Our high-end Combat Power is also insufficient. If the other party has an escort fleet or powerful guards, Miss Parul, you will need to take action,” Mr. Zhang said.
After we last docked at Misty Island and set sail again, we intercepted another Tsarist Russian transport fleet. Then, it seemed they finally reacted, realizing they were being targeted by a certain pirate group.
According to Intelligence passed to me by spies left behind at Darmstadt, Tsarist Russia dispatched the Baltic Sea Fleet to patrol the shipping routes and clear out pirates. At the same time, they instructed the fleets to split up and travel to their home country individually.
I could only say that this idea was too foolish. Instead of concentrating all the ships together and escorting them with the Navy, they separated the transport ships, making them gamble whether they would be captured by pirates. Their safety depended entirely on luck.
Of course, this idea was not entirely without reason in this world. Tsarist Russia had received Intelligence that a pirate group was targeting them. However, due to our excellent security measures, Tsarist Russia had not figured out our background, such as how many people we had, how many ships we possessed, and how strong our high-end Combat Power was.
Generally speaking, pirate groups were not large. It was common for a single pirate ship with its entire crew to go out and pillage. Therefore, if the transport ships were separated, ordinary pirate groups could not capture all of them; they could at most only cover one shipping route.
Furthermore, the reason the profession of piracy has survived to modern times is related to the individual Combat Power of strong individuals in this world. On the vast Great Sea, no high-tech weapons are effective. A super-strong individual can easily destroy a fleet by summoning a tsunami or storm, making protection very difficult. This is unless one side has equivalent or more powerful individuals.
Therefore, if the fleets traveled in groups, there would only be two possibilities. One was that the pirates would retreat and no longer attack your large fleet. However, the cost of escorting a fleet was too high, and it could not be maintained indefinitely. The pirates could simply wait for the ships to be separated before attacking.
The other possibility was that the pirate group was strong enough and bold enough to dare to attack the fleet. If it were a Pirate King-level expert, even Tsarist Russia’s Baltic Sea Fleet would have to consider it carefully. If they clashed head-on and their fleet was sunk to the bottom of the sea, the loss would be too great.
Ultimately, I didn’t know how they discussed it within Tsarist Russia, but they still chose to split up. Thus, we also decided to split up and intercept those transport ships on the shipping routes separately.
The strongest Sea Power’s Hammer and the weakest Fang were paired together. The two pirate ships, Victory Goddess Exclamation Mark and the Black Tulip, were paired together. The remaining Blood Hawk was in a group by itself, with me personally in command.
I also proposed a tactic: the five ships would maintain contact with each other. If they encountered a transport ship with a particularly strong escort fleet, they would send a signal asking for support from other ships, and then all ships would hunt together.
That’s right, it was the Wolf Pack Tactic used by German submarines during World War II. Unfortunately, I only had five ships under my command, and they weren’t submarines, so I couldn’t play a formal Wolf Pack Tactic.
However, the Blood Hawk, which I was personally commanding, could try it out. Now, in the Great Sea, large numbers of Blood Sharks were swimming. These were low-level Monsters controlled by Aniya, and they were searching everywhere for transport ships.
Finally, the sea map lit up. A red dot appeared from the southwest corner, moving north at a high speed. At least, judging by the ship’s speed, it was considered very fast.
“Miss Parul, it’s a message from Captain Aniya. She has found traces of a transport ship,” Mr. Zhang said, looking at the sea map.
“Are they trying to escape at full speed? However, it’s impossible to outrun Aniya at sea. Ring the alarm bell. But this time, we won’t act yet. Let’s see Aniya’s strength,” I said, as I had been very interested in this Druid who called herself the School of the Heart of the Ocean for a long time.
I pushed open the door and came out onto the deck. The Guardian Deity also did not feel cold. The piercing alarm bell rang at an extremely high frequency. A large number of crew members rushed out of the cabins to their respective cannon and loading positions to prepare. The living sailors kept moving their bodies, trying to generate heat and prepare for battle.
We were lying in wait on the shipping route. Soon, a steam-powered paddle steamer appeared in the distance. This paddle steamer had three steam paddle wheels on each side, totaling six. No wonder its speed was so fast.
Seeing an unidentified sailing ship moving very slowly on its original route ahead, the six-wheeled transport ship seemed to become nervous and increased its speed a little.
But I knew it was useless, because with my God’s Eye, I could already see the dense Blood Sharks swimming below the ship, gathering from all directions; there was no escape.
When the transport ship passed us and all attention was focused on us, a rotten sea serpent suddenly rushed out of the sea and wrapped itself around the transport ship.
